Tourism and Investment in Japan

A popular cherry blossom viewing sites around Japan were packed on this Saturday, the first weekend since a state of emergency was lifted for all areas in Japan including Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures.  There were more viewers compared with last week as the cherry blossoms reached full bloom this weekend. Local government officials called on blossom viewers to wear masks and avoid crowds. The cherry blossoms have bloomed as usual, but the resurgence of the tourism industry seems to be a little bit way off.  Tokyu Hotels, a leading hotel chain in Japan, announced that it will close its Nagoya Sakae Tokyu REI Hotel located in the center of Nagoya City at the end of March 2022. Since the number of domestic and foreign tourists has decreased sharply due to the new coronavirus and is not expected to recover soon, Tokyu decided to close this hotel, which was opened in 1984 and is rather aged. The hotel maintained occupancy rate of around 75% before the pandemic, but the re...

Newly infected cases have fallen steadily after the second state of emergency was issued The second state of emergency issued to curb the infection of the new coronavirus has been lifted on March 21 in Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures. This ends all the state of emergency in every parts of Japan. Two and a half months long state of emergency is over from now on after having been extended twice as the number of newly infected people has fallen since the restrictions were imposed.  However, the pace of decline has slowed recently and even rebounded in some prefectures forcing them even to consider issuing its own state of emergency. On the other hand, tourists are gradually returning to the sightseeing spots in prefectures where the state of emergency was lifted at the end of February prior to Tokyo metropolitan area. One of those areas is Takayama City, Gifu prefecture. Tourists return gradually in Takayama city thanks to earlier lifting of the emergency At Takayama, a po...

Ateam engages in entertainment business, lifestyle support business, and EC business Ateam inc., founded in 2000 with its headquarters in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, is an IT company that operates price comparison websites for various services needed in daily life and provides games and useful tool applications for smart devices such as smartphones and tablet devices. Ateam engages in three domains of business which are "entertainment business", "lifestyle support business" and "EC business".  In entertainment business, the company plans, develops and operates games and useful tool applications for smart devices such as “ Hatsune Miku – Tap Wonder”, a new smartphone game starring the Virtual Singer Hatsune Miku and 　 "Revue Starlight", a smartphone game that started as a musical and was followed by a hit anime series, and “BASSA WARRIORS”, a battle RPG where players engage in heart-pounding combat in an expansive fantasy setting.  In the en...